After his first game venture failed, Peter Molyneux started a baked bean export business. Commodore International mistakenly offered him ten free Amiga systems because they confused the baked bean company’s name “Taurus” with a software company “Torus”, and he used the hardware to create a database system for the Amiga, which was successful.

Which is just such a weird story.

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Due to the game’s failure, Molyneux retreated from game design, and started Taurus Impex Limited—a company that exported baked beans to the Middle East—with his business partner Les Edgar.[5][6] Commodore International mistook it for Torus, a more established company that produced networking software, and offered to provide Molyneux with ten[5] free Amiga systems to help in porting “his” networking software.[2][7] Molyneux later said “it suddenly dawned on me that this guy didn’t know who we were. I suddenly had this crisis of conscience. I thought, ‘If this guy finds out, there go my free computers down the drain.’ So I just shook his hand and ran out of that office.”[2] Taurus designed a database system for the Amiga called Acquisition – The Ultimate Database for The Amiga[5] and, after clearing up the misunderstanding with Commodore, released the program to moderate success.

    • snek_boi@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      A couple of months ago there was a period in which there were plenty of posts about beans. The posts and the comments built up the idea that the Lemmy identity was tied to beans. I guess that died down a bit.

      • GONADS125@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It was a running joke about shitposting, hence posting beans (fuel for shitposting).

        I’m not a fan of lame ass memes and puns so I blocked all those communities. No beans for me.

    • theragu40@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Your indignation at someone calling out the beanery of your post is somehow even funnier than the serendipitous inclusion of beans in the post. All around A+, bravo.